The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Reliability physics modeling is used to estimate integrated circuit (IC) projected lifetime under specified operating conditions. Currently, IC chip lifetimes are typically estimated at the time of manufacture and assigned based on operating conditions that may not be exceeded for the estimate to remain valid. This does not take into account actual operating conditions during use of the IC chip and does not allow an end user to understand the effect changed operating conditions may have on projected IC chip lifetime. With no method to assess reliability in real time with respect to actual product use and environmental conditions, extra reliability that may be in the form of additional product lifetime and/or performance may be unused, translating to additional product cost over time.